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The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

adamierymenko.com

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Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#151

Post by TheRealPomax »

native_samples wrote: post #130
TheRealPomax wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about giving up? But if you need a UI that's cross-platform compatible with literally zero effort, good luck beating something like React/Vue running in a webview that works both online, offline, and happily on android and ios to boot.

You can do that with JavaFX as well actually. Not many people know about it or do it but you can compile the same codebase to Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS. It's not particularly high effort. You can get native binaries without JIT compilation out the other end.

Having created JavaFX apps in the past: that's comparing mopeds to racecars, because the actual code writing part in JavaFX is so much more tedious. The upside of moving fast and breaking things (which you're absolutely going to with a webview app) is that you move REALLY fast, and breaking things is almost trivially fixed because everything lets you either look at the dev console directly, or attach a dev console in seconds, and off you go setting your breakpoints and var watchers.

(and as always, how bad you break things and how quickly you can determine where and how to fix it has nothing to do with the choice in tech, and everything to do with your experience as a software engineer, or "dev" as we apparently call folks these days)

Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#152

Post by pjmlp »

BackBlast wrote: post #144
pjmlp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with a similar background that only applies if we are speaking about CRUD forms, anything else Web is a joke versus native tooling for GUI design.

Disagree with you, I find the grandparents observations to be right on. Especially for layout, I haven't seen a layout system that can match html/css for all screen sizes. The web is a bit rough around the edges in some spots but for the wide target base and productivity of the tools and frameworks nothing I've used previously comes close.

XAML, where CSS grid was born.

Now you have seen one.

Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#153

Post by sofixa »

ryandrake wrote: post #147
sofixa wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many Electron fans talk about how apps should look and feel exactly the same on every OS Don't you think it's a good idea to have consistent UI and UX cross platform? If a user switches between the mobile/mac/Windows/web version, everything should change? > And it isn't like Slack or Microsoft don't have the resources to make native apps. Considering Microsoft seemingly don't have the resources to make a functional…

> Don't you think it's a good idea to have consistent UI and UX cross platform? No. Users don't typically switch platforms often. End users expect applications to be consistent with other applications on their platform. If every other application on my system uses ⌘Q to quit, and yours doesn't because you're trying to be consistent with some other platform I've never used, then yours is going to seem like it has the…

> No. Users don't typically switch platforms often

Users don't switch between mobile, PC? By far the most common mobile and PC OSes, Android and Windows, look nothing alike. Using something as simple as a chat app on both in "native" modes can be a burden. I

Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#154

Post by native_samples »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #151
native_samples wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that with JavaFX as well actually. Not many people know about it or do it but you can compile the same codebase to Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS. It's not particularly high effort. You can get native binaries without JIT compilation out the other end.

Having created JavaFX apps in the past: that's comparing mopeds to racecars, because the actual code writing part in JavaFX is so much more tedious. The upside of moving fast and breaking things (which you're absolutely going to with a webview app) is that you move REALLY fast, and breaking things is almost trivially fixed because everything lets you either look at the dev console directly, or attach a dev console in…

More tedious than HTML? That's a surprise. Java is more verbose than JavaScript it's true, but I've been using Kotlin for years and Kotlin is more concise than both. HTML doesn't even have much of a widget library beyond a few basics, so to get even close to the basics JavaFX provides you need to import a whole pile of libraries.

I'm curious to learn more about the dev console thing. The dev console is a nice thing but you're talking about breakpoints and watches. Any IDE has a great integrated debugger, and with JavaFX you can step into the entire GUI framework right now to where it issues draw calls to Direct3D or OpenGL, so it's far more debuggable than a webview. I would understand more if you were talking about things like the network explorer views, but debugging? Java debuggers are great!

Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#155

Post by ryandrake »

sofixa wrote: post #153
ryandrake wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't you think it's a good idea to have consistent UI and UX cross platform? No. Users don't typically switch platforms often. End users expect applications to be consistent with other applications on their platform. If every other application on my system uses ⌘Q to quit, and yours doesn't because you're trying to be consistent with some other platform I've never used, then yours is going to seem like it has the…

> No. Users don't typically switch platforms often Users don't switch between mobile, PC? By far the most common mobile and PC OSes, Android and Windows, look nothing alike. Using something as simple as a chat app on both in "native" modes can be a burden. I

1. Users definitely don't want consistency across mobile and desktop. Mobile interfaces displayed on a desktop look like ultra-simplified toys and desktop interfaces displayed on mobile are too dense.

2. The article/thread is about native vs. web UIs on desktop platforms so not sure how mobile is even relevant.

Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#156

Post by setr »

jiggawatts wrote: post #142
majewsky wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, it's up in vim. So maybe the VSCode guys all used vim before? :)

What I love about VI and vim is that every time it comes up, I can't help but bring up this little bit of history: "Joy used a Lear Siegler ADM-3A terminal. On this terminal, the Escape key was at the location now occupied by the Tab key on the widely used IBM PC keyboard (on the left side of the alphabetic part of the keyboard, one row above the middle row). This made it a convenient choice for switching vi modes. A…

the fact that it was built under certain constraints, which are no longer applicable, does not mean that the design is no longer valid -- it just means it may no longer be valid.

"constraints breed creativity" is the idea that you can end up with a better, more versatile solution -- rather than copping out at the first "good enough" solution. Of course, it's not guaranteed, but still. It's certainly possible that arrow keys are a mistake for total performance (arrows are trivially more visible, but also trivially greater motion from your other work). It's also certainly possible that modal editing is simply more effective than mouse & hotkeys, even if they were only designed because the mouse wasn't available.

Now, escape vs caps-lock-position, I'll give you freely, but generally its fair to judge a design based on current constraints, but not to judge (& discard) a design because it was designed other alternative constraints.

Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#157

Post by cusenses »

jiggawatts wrote: post #113
cusenses wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up arrow within the textbox also works to restore previous searches.

This function is handled by the DOWN arrow in other text editors! I just tested a bunch: VS Code: UP Visual Studio: DOWN Notepad++: DOWN TextPAD: DOWN IntelliJ: ALT+DOWN MS Word: DOWN Sigh... I have no words. It's just so sad that I expected this. I literally pressed "DOWN", it didn't work, there's no drop-down GUI indicator, so I just assumed it was a missing feature. Instead, it's yet another feaure where the VS Co…

I think VS Code in this case is just trying to emulate the behavior of terminal history. Another commenter mentioned that Vim was the same. Up and down arrow navigating history seems to be a more common thing in the Unix-y world, which VS Code is trying to appeal to.

Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#158

Post by pritambaral »

jiggawatts wrote: post #142
majewsky wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, it's up in vim. So maybe the VSCode guys all used vim before? :)

What I love about VI and vim is that every time it comes up, I can't help but bring up this little bit of history: "Joy used a Lear Siegler ADM-3A terminal. On this terminal, the Escape key was at the location now occupied by the Tab key on the widely used IBM PC keyboard (on the left side of the alphabetic part of the keyboard, one row above the middle row). This made it a convenient choice for switching vi modes. A…

Every time this assertion is brought up I can't help but bring up this counterpoint:

People continue choosing to use vi-keys (via vim, nvim, or even the many vim-emulation layers all over the place), even on modern high-speed connections, precisely because they still find "single character commands and the ability to type ahead of the display" valuable.

"The display" does not have to be a terminal display. In fact, a significant number of places vi-emulation is used don't even support terminal displays. "The display" can be anything the human waits for to reflect the actions of keys pressed. Once you consider this, the efficiency benefit of vi-keys becomes as clear as that of touch-typing.

The ADM-3A no longer matters. Vim does not use vi-keys because it ever targeted the ADM-3A. Similarly for Neovim, Evil, Tridactyl, Vimium, GMail (and so on). When I wrote a new vi-keys layer for a toy terminal multiplexer, I didn't use h-j-k-l for navigation because I wanted to target the ADM-3A — I didn't even know about the ADM-3A! I did it because I knew of the benefit of using those keys, even on the modern 100+-keys QWERTY-layout that I grew up on and still use.

----

> .... my gigabit fibre connection.

> You're reading this on a phone? Is it 5G? Then it's faster than my fibre.

I cannot describe enough how much I hate this discriminatory excuse, and I live in the top two cities with the best internet connectivity in my country (for four years of my life in Mumbai, till 2020, I was one hop away from the Mumbai IXP). It is downright shameful how far people will stoop while using this excuse. An absolute minority of the population thinks it absolutely okay to build software that excludes users who don't have the absolute best hardware, just because they live in cities like SF or Seoul and are blind to the conditions of other humans. Most of these people aren't even aware how they are excluding people; that's how little they care. I can only wonder what the overlap is between this set of people and those that ignore accessibility.

You are fortunate enough to have a gigabit fibre connection (and possibly 5G) connecting you to servers from your continent, most of your time. But that is not a right you can expect others to have, and that fortune is far from universal. I am fortunate enough to have the access I do have when I have it, but I can only sympathise with the plight of those in Australia.

Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#159

Post by sofixa »

ryandrake wrote: post #155
sofixa wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. Users don't typically switch platforms often Users don't switch between mobile, PC? By far the most common mobile and PC OSes, Android and Windows, look nothing alike. Using something as simple as a chat app on both in "native" modes can be a burden. I

1. Users definitely don't want consistency across mobile and desktop. Mobile interfaces displayed on a desktop look like ultra-simplified toys and desktop interfaces displayed on mobile are too dense. 2. The article/thread is about native vs. web UIs on desktop platforms so not sure how mobile is even relevant.

> Mobile interfaces displayed on a desktop look like ultra-simplified toys and desktop interfaces displayed on mobile are too dense

I'm talking about consistency, not copy pasting. Google's Material Design is sufficiently consistent that switching between mobile and desktop ( web) is fine

> The article/thread is about native vs. web UIs on desktop platforms so not sure how mobile is even relevant

Indeed, but one of the main points for native UI on desktop is for native OS UX consistency, and my point is that i prefer app consistency cross platform over OS consistency. Especially when the most popular desktop OS changes its UX paradigm half-heartedly every few years.

Are you an Apple user per chance? Most people who seem to prefer "native" UX seem to prefer Apple's different way of doing UX, which i understand can be difficult when switching to a cross platform UI which is consistent between platforms and is closer to Windows and Linux UX than it is to Apple's.

Re: The Web Is Eating the Desktop (2017)

#160

Post by brokenmachine »

pritambaral wrote: post #158
jiggawatts wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I love about VI and vim is that every time it comes up, I can't help but bring up this little bit of history: "Joy used a Lear Siegler ADM-3A terminal. On this terminal, the Escape key was at the location now occupied by the Tab key on the widely used IBM PC keyboard (on the left side of the alphabetic part of the keyboard, one row above the middle row). This made it a convenient choice for switching vi modes. A…

Every time this assertion is brought up I can't help but bring up this counterpoint: People continue choosing to use vi-keys (via vim, nvim, or even the many vim-emulation layers all over the place), even on modern high-speed connections , precisely because they still find "single character commands and the ability to type ahead of the display" valuable. "The display" does not have to be a terminal display. In fact,…

> I am fortunate enough to have the access I do have when I have it, but I can only sympathise with the plight of those in Australia.

Australian here with 250mbit at home and 5G on my phone.

I still hate Electron apps though.

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